Respawn Entertainment released an Apex Legends balance patch today that tones down Seer’s abilities.
All of Seer’s kit was adjusted in the patch. The changes start with his passive, Heart Seeker. The wait time between sensor spikes for full HP targets has been increased from 1.25 seconds to 1.75 seconds. The ability’s field of view has been reduced, as has its range beyond 75m, which corresponds to the blue spikes around his crosshair. All of this means Seer can’t see enemies quite as far and wide with Heart Seeker as he used to, the passive’s precision is lower, and he doesn’t have as much of an advantage against enemies that are at full health.
The most pressing changes come to Seer’s tactical, Focus of Attention. The detonation delay has been increased from 1.4 to 1.6 seconds, meaning enemies have slightly more time to exit the cone. Focus of Attention no longer includes a flash and doesn’t do damage anymore, and the screen shake resulting from a hit has been reduced. While Seer is channeling the tactical, he now moves more slowly. Last but not least, the ability’s audio volume has been lowered.
Seer’s ultimate, Exhibit, was also tweaked—but not as much as Heart Seeker and Focus of Attention. Exhibit’s cooldown was increased from 90 seconds to 120 seconds and its audio volume was lowered, like Focus of Attention’s.
In addition to Seer changes, Respawn also fixed a variety of bugs, including the notorious explosive holds bug where attempting to open a hold with a grenade would cause the entire server to crash. Respawn reports that another small update coming later today will cause explosive holds to spawn closed again.
Shortly after Respawn released the patch notes, associate live balance designer John Larson shared some of the design philosophy behind Seer’s changes on Twitter. Larson says the goal behind this patch “is to hit pain points and degenerate play patterns without preemptively gutting the unique parts of Seer’s kit.” In other words, those who were hoping for more fundamental changes to Seer will be disappointed. Respawn aims to tone down the frustration that many feel while playing against him while also preserving his spot across the game’s legends.
Larson went on to say he thinks Seer and the “wallhack meta” will need continued adjustment and refinement as the game evolves. He noted that “ratting is now virtually impossible,” referring to how many players, particularly solo queue ranked participants, like to hide out in corners of the map until only a few squads remain in the match.
The patch is live now across PC and all console editions of Apex Legends.
